contact : embassyofimagination@gmail.com
EMBASSY OF IMAGINATION (2014-2020):
Embassy of Imagination (EOI) is a community-engaged art project comprised of youth from Kinngait (formerly also known as Cape Dorset, NU) and PA System (Alexa Hatanaka and Patrick Thompson). EOI works with local collaborators including sewers Ooloosie Ashevak and Nicotye Qimirpik, artists, Elders and hunters to create art and land-based programming, and engage in contemporary art exhibitions and festivals. EOI animates yearly art workshops, and creates collaborative community art projects, including public murals, performances, and exhibitions, within Kinngait, across Canada and internationally. The youth have an important voice as individual artists, and collectively, contributing to Indigenous place-making and challenging the expectations for youth-engaged art. EOI is a reciprocal sharing of knowledge and ideas, expressing cross-cultural collaboration and shared human experience as an embodied practice and in material form.
EOI projects have been supported by Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association, the West-Baffin Eskimo Co-op, Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Canadian Heritage, The W. Garfield Weston Foundation, Taking IT Global, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Government of Nunavut.
"There is no doubt that Embassy of Imagination continues to inspire self-empowerment among youth in the north through fostering creativity and fun. As a representative for Cape Dorset, I would like to express my sincere gratitude this group has dedicated to the well-being of the community."
-David Joanasie, MLA South Baffin, Minister of Education
A Slice of Our Story:
EOI was started by visual artists Alexa Hatanaka and Patrick Thompson in 2014, with the guidance and inspiration of Kinngait youth, community members and high school staff. After having the good luck to accept commissions to paint public murals in a few communities in Inuit Nunangat from 2010-2012, they were approached by youth to learn and engage in this art form. Upon invitation to Kinngait in 2014, the youth they met in the workshops they were hosting inspired them to co-create the first EOI mural, still installed on Sam Pudlat School. In that year life-long friendships were formed and from there EOI grew and evolved as an emergent and responsive project. Everyone involved, especially Hatanaka and Thompson, learned a lot along the way, and each participant has played a role in producing a project based in community-care, relationship, intergenerational learning, co-learning, fun, play, service, and reciprocity.
Hatanaka and Thompson have individual art practices and work under the collective name PA System, circa 2010. They exhibit their artwork in institutions worldwide, such as the Royal Ontario Museum, the Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona, the Canada House in London and the Art Gallery of Ontario. They have created public artwork across Canada and around the world.
In 2018 Hatanaka and Thompson partnered with the District Education Authority of Kinngait on an art program as well as a land program, for which the latter’s equipment is funded through the proceeds of their youth-engaged Future Snowmachines in Kinngait (FSIK) project. FSIK sculptures were exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario for its Every. Now. Then. Reframing Nationhood show in 2017, and were created with youth aged 13-15: Christine Adamie, Moe Kelly, David Pudlat, Nathan Adla and Lachaolasie Akesuk. One sculpture has been acquired for Dalhousie Art Gallery’s permanent collection. Another iteration with Janice Qimirpik was a temporary sculpture at The Bentway. 100% of the proceeds have gone to the District Education Authority in Kinngait, which so far is a total of $60 000, with which two new snowmobiles have been purchased thus far, housed at Peter Pitseolak School. This project is an example of the aim to find ways for art practice to support initiatives in the community, identified by the youth and in collaboration with the youth. Some of the sculptures are available, please contact embassyofimagination@gmail.com if interested.
YOUTH MENTOR ARTIST:
Cie Taqiasuk is from Cape Dorset, Nunavut. He comes from a family of carvers. He too carves in soapstone, as well as draws, paints, and creates original relief prints.
In 2015, Taqiasuk collaborated with three other young Cape Dorset artists and Embassy of Imagination (EOI) on the unprecedented 50’ mural Piliriqatigiingniq in Toronto during the Pan Am Games. His artwork represents Nunavut as part of the Canada 150 Project Maple Wish by Taking IT Global and the Winnipeg Art Gallery. He is a mentor to younger artists and he lives in Cape Dorset, Nunavut.
http://www.pasystem.org/towards-something-new-and-beautiful-future-snowmachines-in-kinngait-1
https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/65674nunavut_youth_from_cape_dorset_reframe_canada_150/
https://www.thebentway.ca/event/future-snowmachines/
Hatanaka and Thompson would like to express their gratitude to Kinngait for welcoming them, and making their lives full.
Patrick Thompson and Cie Taqiasuk (left), Alexa Hatanaka, some of the 2016 youth artist group, fishing day-trip led by Elder Kov Tapaungai and Joseph Pinguartuk (right)
WHERE IS KINNGAIT?
Kinngait, Nunavut is an Inuit hamlet on Dorset Island at the southern tip of Baffin Island in Nunavut, Canada. It is a fly-in community, and sure is worth a visit. Kinngait has a remarkable roster of artists (http://www.dorsetfinearts.com/history-of-wbec/)
Cape Dorset, Nunavut, Canada. Image Courtesy of Google Maps